Gender Analysis Sample Questions for NOFO Applicants (2).pdf

U.S. DEPARTMENT of STATE

Office of Global Women’s Issues

Department of State

Gender Analysis Sample Questions for Notice of Funding Opportunity

Applicants

This document is intended to serve as a guide for DOS Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) applicants conducting a gender analysis to inform their program design. It may be attached to NOFOs for organizations to reference when analyzing gender in the context of the area/region in which they wish to work. Applicants are not required to use this exact format, as many organizations will have their own gender analysis system, templates, or processes. It is intended as an example of how to consult, research, and apply gender analysis in the context of DOS foreign assistance opportunities.

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I. What is Gender Analysis?

Gender analysis (GA) is a tool for exploring the gaps in status, resources, and opportunities that women, men, boys, and girls have as a result of their gender, and how this interacts with proposed work. Gender analysis is most effective when used in the early stages of program/activity conception to inform design, and it should be reviewed consistently throughout the implementation of the proposed intervention. This simple process can be conducted by anyone to ensure activities reach all members of a community equitably.

Applicants for Department of State NOFOs can integrate gender analysis into their proposals by taking the below steps.

Steps of Gender Analysis

1. Gather Data and Reports: Conduct community consultations and review existing research to understand the context of the community/country/region for this activity and potential partners.

2. Discuss and Analyze: After reviewing consultation findings and research, discuss the information with local partners, local communities, and other colleagues to analyze how it can or may impact the program design and results.

3. Incorporate Findings: Work with your team to incorporate gender analysis findings into your proposal design. For risks that were identified in your gender analysis, clearly address them in either your risk analysis and mitigation plan and/or program design, as appropriate.

How to Incorporate GA into Proposals

Below are questions to identify the ways in which men, women, boys, and girls might impact and be impacted by your work, and illuminate opportunities to narrow inequities. Once you analyze the challenges, gaps, and opportunities related to gender, your findings can be used to strengthen your program design. For example:

• If traditional gender roles exclude men from nursing jobs, and our intervention seeks to address a need for trained nurses, can we tailor some activities to recruit and retain more men in nursing?

• If traditional gender roles and economic stressors stop girls from attending school, and our intervention seeks to increase secondary school attendance and performance, how can we tailor some activities to close this gender gap?

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II. Conducting a Gender Analysis Gender analyses must be tailored to the community/country/region where the work will take place. The following list provides sample questions to help complete a contextually specific gender analysis. Questions are grouped here in five domains1 to assist in organization, but answers may overlap.

Domains of Analysis

• Laws, Policies, Regulations, and Institutional Practices. Are men, women, boys, and girls treated equitably in legislation, policies, and institutions? Are there any laws or policies that address inequities or discrimination? How could these impact the work?

• Cultural Norms and Beliefs. What does this society expect of men and women, boys and girls?

How will this shape the way our work impacts men, women, boys, and girls? Do gender norms or expectations facilitate or impede men’s, women’s, boys’, and girls’ engagement in the work?

• Gender Roles, Responsibilities, and Time Use (including paid and unpaid work like care for family members). Who does what? How do men’s, women’s, boys’, and girls’ roles and responsibilities, inside and outside the home, change the way they’re affected by the challenges at hand? How might they impact their participation in the work?

• Access to and Control over Assets and Resources (includes income, employment, and land). Do men and women, boys and girls have equal control over and the capacity to use resources and assets?

Examples include access and control over income, education, social services, technology, and information.

• Patterns of Power and Decision-making (including structural barriers and leadership norms). Who influences or exercises control over decision-making? Why? Consider decisions over material, human, intellectual, or financial resources. Are there any risks associated with disrupting these decision-making patterns, even if someone requests it? If so, how will you mitigate or respond to those risks?

Cross-Cutting Questions

• Have you consulted with women, girls, and communities? What do local women’s groups and gender experts (if available) think? Have you or others engaged them?

• How could gender-based violence impact the work? This can include risks and rates of domestic violence, early and forced marriage, violence against women online, harassment or intimidation of women in politics, etc.

• What other factors should be considered? Factors may include age, religion, race, ethnicity, tribe, wealth, education, marital status, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, rural/urban residence, disability status, and nationality, among others. Are there risks that arise from wanting to engage with historically marginalized people?

We have harmonized DOS domains of analysis with USAID for ease and accessibility.

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III. Integrating Your Gender Analysis Into Program Design and Proposals

Considerations related to applying your gender analysis to your design and implementation.

Design and Implementation

• Staffing o How will you deal with gender norms, discrimination, and vulnerability in this work?

� Will you train staff to be sensitive to different local, national, or regional gender norms, and how to interact with those norms?

� If staff or partners are discriminating against others or being discriminated against, do you have a policy and practice in place to address that?

� Will the team include someone trained in privacy and referrals in cases of GBV?

o Will staff be trained on how to assess and narrow gender inequities?

o Will staff be representative of, and able to communicate with the people you need to reach?

• Stakeholder Participation o How will you consult with local women and women’s groups to ensure the work is reflective of and responsive to their needs and perspectives?

o How will you reach everyone relevant to the success of the work?

o Which local organizations can help make sure you are able to appropriately engage all members of a community?

• Logic Framework/Work Plan o How will gender equality be included in your logic framework and how will you iteratively strengthen its implementation?

• Risk Assessment/Challenges o Is the work likely to exacerbate existing tensions or conflicts within the home, between participants or beneficiaries, within or between communities, or otherwise?

o What gendered issues, including the safety, movement, and access of participants and staff, may arise and how will you mitigate and respond to those risks?

o What are your safeguarding practices and policy to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse of participants by staff and implementing partners?

• Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning o How will you monitor, analyze, evaluate, and continuously learn about gender norms, challenges, and opportunities as you implement this work?

o Is reducing gender inequalities a primary goal or objective of your work?

o Are you disaggregating proposed indicators by sex and age?

o Have you included gender-specific indicators?

� State and USAID have joint foreign assistance GNDR standard indicators that may be helpful:

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• GNDR-1: Number of legal instruments drafted, proposed or adopted with

USG assistance designed to promote gender equality or non-discrimination against women or girls at the national or sub-national level

• GNDR-2: Percentage of female participants in USG-assisted programs designed to increase access to productive economic resources (assets, credit, income or employment)

• GNDR-4: Percentage of participants reporting increased agreement with the concept that males and females should have equal access to social, economic, and political resources and opportunities

• GNDR-5: Number of legal instruments drafted, proposed, or adopted with

USG assistance designed to improve prevention of or response to sexual and gender based violence at the national or sub-national level

• GNDR-6: Number of people reached by a USG funded intervention providing GBV services (e.g., health, legal, psycho-social counseling, shelters, hotlines, other)

• GNDR-8: Number of persons trained with USG assistance to advance outcomes consistent with gender equality or female empowerment through their roles in public or private sector institutions or organizations

• GNDR-9: Number of training and capacity building activities conducted with USG assistance that are designed to promote the participation of women or the integration of gender perspectives in security sector institutions or activities.

• GNDR-10: Number of local women participating in a substantive role or position in a peacebuilding process supported with USG assistance.